Development of Metalinguistic Skills in Children of Varying Language Ability.

Chesnick, M. A.; And Others

This study examined the development of metaprocessing abilities in children with varying degrees of language abilities and sought to determine if the patterns of metaprocessing development that emerged were similar for these ability groups. Subjects were 141 children ages 4-5 at the beginning of the study, divided into a control group, a low average group, and a group with specific language impairment (SLI). Measures included initial standardized language intake measures, oral language metaprocessing measures given 6 months after the start of the study and then two more times at approximately 6 month intervals, and standardized reading measures at the end of the study. The language metaprocessing measures examined the children's comprehension; short term memory; and linguistic awareness at the phoneme, word, sentence, and discourse levels. The three groups performed significantly differently from one another at all three times, with the SLI group performing most poorly. However, there were no intergroup differences in the developmental trends or patterns that were emerging for overall metalinguistic development. Performance of each group on specific metalinguistic tasks is analyzed. The paper concludes that oral language skills and early reading abilities are related, and that SLI children do not "catch up" in terms of their metalinguistic abilities and appear to have great difficulty in the initial stages of reading. (JDD)